


Your words are a messy and illegible scrawl

by Aethelar



Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Comment Fics, Humour, M/M, headcanons and backstory
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-12-16
Updated: 2016-12-16
Packaged: 2018-09-09 00:37:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,630
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8869021
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aethelar/pseuds/Aethelar
Summary: Ficlets and comment-fics for my Graves / Newt soulmate fic, Your Words Are Ink. Contain some backstory and some funny asides, as well as a bit of character exploration and just general rambling. Updated alongside Your Words are Ink, may contain spoilers if you aren't up to date with that one.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Your words are ink](https://archiveofourown.org/works/8679943) by [Aethelar](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aethelar/pseuds/Aethelar). 



> Yo! Seemed to make more sense to keep these separate rather than flood the main fic with them, so here they are. Keep commenting, send me your thoughts on this on [tumblr](http://aethelar.tumblr.com), and I'll try to update this each time I post a new chapter of the main story. Enjoy!
> 
> Chapters line up - chapter 1 has comment fics written for chapter 1 of the main story, 2 for 2, etc.

> _Vacilando wrote:_
> 
> _I read the part with Tina’s pov twice before it fully _truly_ sink in that Graves has been living with a soulscript that literally says “Are you going to give me the death sentence again?”_
> 
> _And my angst thirsty ass was going a 1000mph with questions like : how did wee Perce deal with it when it first formed / what did his parents think / did he ever wondered what made his soulmate even ask that / did it ever made him wonder if his soulmate has the first death sentence as his soulscript / oh OH BUT that means his first words to his soulmate is a death sentence_
> 
> _And i 100% checked out of that conversation with my brain because I Just Cant Deal._

Yes. Let’s just say that mini!Graves was a serious little kid who understood enough to recite that the law came first, but not enough to fully grasp what must come second instead. That understanding comes slowly, creeping up on him when he doesn’t want it to, haunting the edges of dreams and tinging them with the oppressive hurt of nightmares.

Graves was an angry teenager, who understood too much, but not how to deal with it. He holds onto his anger, wields it like a shield in one hand and a sword in the other, crushes it down and forges it into something strong and unbreakable because he refuses to be afraid –

There was never any choice, really, about Graves going into the auror program. The field-scarred veterans look at him and nod approvingly, because Percival Graves is a serious kid who understands enough to recite that the law comes first. He is promoted quickly; his slow-burning anger settles down into something his superiors call ‘drive’ and he is known as hard and ruthless when the law calls for it, but fair and merciful when the law calls for that, because whatever his personal grievances with the criminal du jour the law. comes. first.

He never makes any mention of what must come second instead.

 

> _Skimmerick wrote, in the same thread:_
> 
> _I... I just came down here to comment on how I liked the fic and found you smashing random passersby with feels why_
> 
> _ I love it keep going _

Keep smashing random passersby with feels? Or keep going with this particular thread? Because this thread, with Graves growing up and learning to put the law first, this is a thing that I think about far too much for my sanity.

I think about the first couple Graves knew to meet their soulmates, back in Ilvermorny. A girl called Virgil - Graves never learnt her first name - and a boy called Ben, who walked into each other in the corridor and both apologised at the same time. Ben had been a friend, a housemate; Graves used to sit next to him in potions, and the two of them completed their transfiguration homework together on the scuffed wooden benches in the library. Virgil had been a girl two years above them, a prefect, and popular enough to be known but not someone Ben had every thought about before.

Ben thought about nothing else afterwards. They had a whirlwind romance, the darling of the school, and got married as soon as Ben graduated. Potions turned into Graves determinedly working through his worst subject by himself, and the library seat next to him remained empty for the rest of the year.

I think about Graves avoiding their dorm, because there were no four poster beds with curtains he could spell shut and nowhere in the cluttered room to hide from the conversations about soulmates that _never stopped_. People sharing their soulmates, ribbing each other's words as teenage boys are wont to do, bragging about the lives they'd lead when they found their other half.

I think about Graves, sitting at his table in the library with the empty chair across from him, wearing short sleeves in winter to show that he wasn't ashamed of his soulmark. People tiptoed around him, for a bit. Ben became awkward, started keeping his distance, unsure what was safe for him to talk about and what was forbidden territory. Some of the teachers gave him pitying looks and some of the students whispered and pointed and weren't nearly as subtle about it as they thought.

I think about Graves gritting his teeth and breaking the nib of his pen and wondering what it will take, what it will fucking _take_ to make people see that he doesn't. fucking. _care_. His soulmate is a crook. A criminal. A stain on society that can only be cleaned with the death sentence, an evil so terrible that he has to be sentenced to death _twice_ because he twisted out of it the first time --

It might not have happened yet, but it will. One day, it will.

Graves reads, all that time in the library there's very little else to do, and he reads stories about righteous heroes overcoming great evil. About personal sacrifice and putting the many before the one. One day, Graves will be the hero of his own story, and he'll take his evil soulmate and defeat them and save the world - the universe is about balance, and Graves will be the balance for the darkness his soulmate brings, he'll be a fucking _beacon_ of all that is right in the world.

(Did you know, the first time Graves met Grindelwald he was afraid he'd found his soulmate?)

Graves' story heroes will tarnish as he ages, but Graves clings to them in the library at Ilvermorny while Ben plays truant with his soulmate and the teachers turn a blind eye with understanding smiles. The law books will pile up and the stories will gather dust, but for now, he holds his heroes close and learns to hate the villain his soulmate will be.

 

> _Afishyure wrote:_
> 
> _Cute! Im imaging Graves lives with a sentence with "death sentence" in his wrist..._

Not very happily, is the answer to that. But worse than how Graves lived it was how his parents lived with it, you know? I mean. Picture this. You're twenty nine and thirty six, you're young and in love - he works in finance and she's in spell creation, they met at a bridge club when he raised six spades to her three diamonds and dared her to double it. You've both been living with those words on your wrists, you've both learnt the card game because of those words and you've both lost so many rounds because you always open with those bids. You lost a minor fortune on that particular round but you found each other so who cares? Who cares? You won big in all the important ways.

And now you're twenty nine and thirty six and you have a son. A son! He's small and he's bald and his eyes are that odd baby-grey that hasn't yet settled down into a real colour, and he's _perfect_. You would never let anything happen to him. Not to your little boy.

But there's nothing you can do.

His wrist damns him from the day he's born, your perfect son who laughs and smiles and claps his baby hands, and there's nothing you can do.


	2. Chapter 2

> _RenStar wrote:_
> 
> _Omg that was so hilarious!!! I was literally cackle choking as I was reading Picquerry!!!! And Graves!!!! So unimpressed!!!! Poor Newt! He seems to have gotten himself into water well over his poor head! Now I can just imagine Graves fuming as he tries to capture the beast and work with Newt without strangling him and then rescuing his stupid arse from danger, when he can't even seem to comprehend he's in danger! He must be wondering if Picquerry hates him, or if he did something to grievously offend her in the five minutes he's been back at work._

I'm glad you liked it! And your imagines are actually pretty spot on for the characters. Picquery is a trolling troll who trolls, but in such a way as to make people doubt themselves completely and no one can ever call her on it. She's been doing it since she started - and the first time, the first time was an accident. She's just sarcastic by nature, and all these old bags around her are so _serious_ the whole time they just nod, consider her words as though she's said something of great importance, and continue.

The first time - the first few times - Seraphina is low key terrified. New president, new job, and whoops, she's just implied that the director's son couldn't find his arse with both hands and a tracking spell. Except. _Except_. The director nods, considers her words as though she's said something of great importance, and continues.

For a while, it's the most marvellous thing she's ever discovered, but it does get boring after a bit. She thinks at first that people are humouring her, but they're not - she's had meetings with heads of states that should have resulted in outright war but end, instead, with thoughtful nods and careful consideration of her words and sometimes Seraphina wants to scream. She has a horrible feeling though that if she did it would twist around and turn into something of great importance, so for the sake of her sanity, she refrains.

Then the old head of the auror department retires, and this new guy comes up. Young. Serious. Genuinely terrifying with or without a wand in his hand, but luckily follows the law to a fault so that's all good then. In her first meeting with him she calls his fashion choices into question in a way that should make him think she's complimenting him and that he'll really suit pink (it's an idle hobby, seeing how ridiculous she can make her underlings dress, a president's got to get her kicks somehow) --

And he kind of, stumbles, just a bit, gives her this really disturbed look, and awkwardly moves on. Really awkwardly.

Seraphina is _delighted_. She makes it her mission in life to fuck with Graves, partly because no one else ever does, and partly because he gets _exactly_ what she's doing but his moral code (or the law? probably the law) forbids him from calling her on it. And because no one else picks it up he's left wondering if he's just seeing things that aren't there? Except no, he's an auror, he's _good_ at noticing things, but the madam president just suggested that the foreign ambassador's job would be done better by an oompa band of senile flobberworms and the _entire cabinet has nodded sagely at her words_ what the actual _fuck_

And Seraphina just cackles. She doesn't even hide it, she does it openly, and Graves is the only one who is traumatised instead of politely applauding.

It's _glorious_

 

> _Vacilando wrote:_
> 
> _Based on his reaction i say Graves his having a minor aneurysm at the thought of Newt running around nyc with a dangerous beast on the loose._

Minor aneurysm? Minor? You're assuming that Graves does anything by halves. He does not. Why stop at a minor aneurysm when he can have a major one? Why stop there? Why stop at all? Why --

Give Graves back his coffee. Now. There will be hell.

And he is not having a nervous breakdown, so you can cancel that patronus Jenkins, the mediwitches won't be needed today. Also, if anyone so much as breathes a word of this to Newt, they can kiss their lungs goodbye because Graves will make sure they _never breathe again_

 

> _LadyTeldra wrote:_
> 
> _Poor Newt, his words to just be his name... he really really wants to find his Soulmate whenever someone calls him that doesn't he?_

He used to. I've mentioned his habit of saying the strangest, most recogniseable first lines to people in the hope that they'd recognise him, so it was definitely on his mind. But... Well. Other things happened. People paired up around him, some people didn't, Newt moved on. He went to war, and that changed things - that was a big change. People with soulmates, there was something fragile about them, something haunted in the way they went out and the way they sent news home with desperate regularity. Newt had his dragons, and to be honest, he was mostly concerned with them, but he wasn't blind to the men that shared his regiment.

John's soulmate was sick, back home, and he used to sit on the sandbags at night and stare at the stars. He'd trace his fingers over his wrist, over and over and over - _I never thought I'd meet you here_ the words said, and he repeated them like a prayer. It didn't work. She died. Newt was there, Newt saw rubbing oil into the dragon's hide while John sat on his sandbags and said his prayers - Newt ran across the field to catch him when he shrunk in on himself and keeled over, the ragged cry torn from his throat like a dying wail. The dragons shifted, anxious, and Newt held a man who cried for the other half of his soul, and John dug his fingernails into the words at his wrist and made them bleed.

John was offered an honourable discharge. The chance to go home and visit his family, her grave. As much downtime as he needed to recover - because you could, people did. Losing your soulmate hurt, but it was a part of life. We can't all die together in a blaze of glory; people pick themselves up and move on.

John took three days downtime, went over the top and into the field, and didn't come back.

Then there was Josephine, scared to go out and face the muggle guns and scared to bleed out and die on the field, because her soulmate was a girl who danced and laughed and loved and Josephine was afraid to die and hurt her soulmate. She wasn't afraid for herself. She'd signed up to the army, she'd gone to fight - she knew what she was getting in for. But she'd met a girl in the nurse's quarters who held the world in her hands, and suddenly it wasn't just Josephine that suffered when Josephine died. Josephine wouldn't suffer at all, she'd be _dead_ , but her soulmate would be left behind to grieve and Josephine doesn't want to do that to her.

There were others - so many others over so many places woven together in so many ways. Perhaps you're expecting me to say that Newt became jaded. Perhaps you're expecting me to write how he held John when he cried, and he listened to Josephine talking about her soulmate for _hours_ at a time to help her calm down, and perhaps you think he'd decide that this soulmate business wasn't worth it. That he was better off without.

Well. No. One of Newt's dragons died - Bertha, she was called Bertha, and she wasn't very old, for a dragon. She was small and she was quick and she ate the liver first in tiny, dainty bites whenever he fed her and was exceptionally fussy about keeping her claws clean. She died, brought down by a barrage of spell fire that twisted her wings inside out and drowned her fire in burning ice.

Newt sat in the shelter of the stables and sobbed, pressing himself against his other dragons and counting them manically, obsessively, making sure they were all alive.

The younger dragons clung to him and squeaked piteously when he went out into the field; even the older dragons gave him a nudge with their scarred snouts and a friendly rumble to wish him well. Newt wasn't afraid to die but he was afraid to leave them, his dragons, because no one else understood and no one else cared for them like he did, and what would they do if he wasn't there for them?

So what Newt learnt was not: Soulmates cause pain. It was: You don't need to be soulmates to love someone so hard it hurts. In the end, the love is the important part, isn't it?


	3. Chapter 3

> _Vacilando wrote:_
> 
> _dont lie to me perce you totally gonna kit out your office with Newt's favourite everything._

There's an issue with kitting out Graves' office with Newt's favourite everything. A major issue.

... Graves doesn't know what it is, and he _forgot to ask Tina_. The fuck man, how could you forget to ask, this is only your one perfect soulmate and the most precious little cinnamon roll in existence. All he wanted was a cup of tea. _What kind of monster are you._

Graves maybe panics. Graves maybe stravages around the auror department grabbing random passersby by their coat lapels and asking, desperately, frenzied, if they know anything about British tea habits. He gets several answers which range from _best thrown in the harbour_ (which, no, what if Newt heard this sort of talk? What if it made him sad? What if Newt got _offended_ by their sheer disrespect of tea and left and _never came back_?) to _I dunno man, I think Early Gray is a thing? Like, for early mornings?_ but none of them are useful answers. None.

Then word gets out that this is tea for That Terrifying English Bloke With The Creatures (Holy Shit Bro) and somehow, Graves' office ends up stocked with twenty eight kinds of tea and four different kinds of chocolate, because some of the aurors couldn't find tea but still thought it safer to make an offering and keep the Englishman happy.

 

> _Perth wrote:_
> 
> _Your Percival is very fascinating. Then if he believed for so long (since his teenage) that his soulmate could be a big bad criminal and he thoght how much the fuck up his love destiny would be because of that, NOW his whole world would be upside-down extremely when he soulmate is NOT a criminal as he used to believe, but this innocent precious lovely Newt Scarmander....Hmmm now I get why he's so confused and doesn't know what to deal with his soulmate situation all this time. Very fascinating. Indeed. Hhhmmm..._

Graves can't quite deal at the moment. It's not quite sunk in yet, and there's a big thing hovering just on the edge of his consciousness and waiting for him to let his guard down, and it goes like this:

Graves has been preparing all his life to be the good guy. He and his soulmate will be enemies, fine, and it will be because Graves is the good guy and his soulmate is the bad guy.

Graves has been building walls of anger and duty and law because one day the person who is supposed to be perfect for him will hurt him. Already _has_ hurt him, just by being the bad guy, being the one who will one day take the future Graves could have had and _destroy it_. Because that's what bad guys do. They hurt people.

And now Graves' soulmate appears, and he's not the bad guy, he's so very far from ever being the bad guy, and Graves has hurt him.

The fact that it wasn't Graves doesn't matter, because everything Grindelwald did - that was Graves, wasn't it? People flinch away from him, sometimes. Wands were raised on him, when he first limped to his aurors for help. His soulmate is -

Graves didn't want to be the bad guy, but he hurt his soulmate, and that's what bad guys do.

 

> _Dogisms wrote:_
> 
> _I'm just picturing graves following after newt ; who's gallivanting into danger ; and graves is just having like an aneurysm per minute. Because he can't do things half way._

_NEWT and GRAVES are walking through a park. It's a sunny day, birds singing, a couple of clouds in the sky._

_Suddenly, DANGER enters stage left. It is a large, furry creature, standing upright like a bow-legged ape. It's a striking shade of blue with a giant yellow moustache and a red and white striped hat._

NEWT (pointing): Graves, look! Danger!  
GRAVES: Oh god.  
NEWT: We must chase it!  
GRAVES: No why.  
NEWT (withdrawing his wand): For the chase!

_DANGER spots NEWT and jumps in the air. It holds onto its hat and runs off stage right. NEWT is in hot pursuit. GRAVES sits cross legged on the floor and cries._

_The camera pans out, the background fading to black. GRAVES stays full sized in the middle of the screen, but NEWT and DANGER are shrunk to about the size of his head. Doors open on either side of the screen as NEWT chases DANGER, or DANGER chases NEWT, or a whole HOARD OF DANGERS chase NEWT across the screen. Circus music plays. GRAVES has his head in his hands._

NEWT (offscreen): What's this? A baby danger? You were protecting your baby from poachers?  
GRAVES (raised voice, but head still in hands): No it wasn't it's a giant ravenous danger why can't you just _leave it alone_  
NEWT (offscreen): We must chase the poachers!

_A small grey raincloud appears above GRAVES. With a crackle of lightning, it proceeds to rain on GRAVES, but only directly on him. NEWT enters stage right (now the same scale as GRAVES) followed by the DANGER and at least six small purple fluff-bombs. He reaches down and grabs GRAVES' hand, and yoinks him offscreen with the Scooby-doo yoink sound effect._

_NEWT, small scale again, runs across the screen. He is holding his wand out in front of him and has one of the fluffy purple babies held against his chest like a soft toy. The other babies follow, with the large blue DANGER bringing up the rear. The DANGER is dragging GRAVES along by the ankle and the raincloud is following overhead, making sure that GRAVES stays in the rain._


End file.
